LOSING BRANDS: The debate continues-should Coca-Cola
be allowed to buy Chinese brand Huiyuan?

Why Subsidize the Rich?

Northwest China's Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, recently decided to subsidize local home buyers in order to boost the weak housing market. The subsidies are reported to have come from the city's public finance coffers.

This money should be spent on public services for the whole city, not just the home buyers. The fact is that most taxpayers are living at the middle- and low-income level, so they are unlikely to buy new apartments against the extremely high housing prices for the time being. Thus, the local government is undoubtedly grabbing money from the poor to subsidize the rich.

Price fluctuations are not only the immediate reflection of supply and demand. When a certain commodity is too expensive for ordinary people to afford, the trading volume will naturally drop and vice versa.

Xi'an's subsidy practice violates the principle of fairness. The accusation is that if real estate developers manage to maintain high housing prices through the government, other industries, say auto and gas, may also try to keep or even boost prices by asking for subsidies from the government.

Using public money to safeguard the interests of real estate developers is not only misusing public funds, but also impairing the equality principle of the market economy.

Chongqing Times

Help All Students

The highest scorer on this year's national college entrance examination in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province risked losing his college seat because his ailing parents cannot afford the

tuition. Fortunately, a local company subsidized him. In this case money was offered as he is among the top students in the county and the media made his situation known to the public, but how about those who are not top students, to whom the media pay little attention?

Although education authorities have reiterated on many occasions that measures would be taken to prevent any college student from quitting school because of poverty, this problem remains a hot topic at a time when the new school year has begun.